The Dossiers
25 case files, each documenting one band's complete history of formation, friction and fracture — full timelines, personnel ledgers, and the incidents they'd rather you forgot. Filed in rough order of infamy.
Guns N' Roses
Fired their drummer, lost their rhythm guitarist mid-tour, saw the singer end up sole owner of the name, and spent 15 years and a reported $13M making one album.
FILE Nº 002 · 1960–1970The Beatles
The biggest band on Earth dissolved via press release, sued each other into receivership, and spent decades litigating a fruit-themed holding company.
FILE Nº 003 · 1975–1978Sex Pistols
Signed and dropped by two labels in six months, swore on live TV, imploded onstage in San Francisco, then sued their own manager — and later each other — for decades.
FILE Nº 004 · 1967–2022Fleetwood Mac
Lost a founder to a religious commune mid-tour, was impersonated by a fake band their own manager sent on the road, and recorded the best-selling breakup album in history — about each other.
FILE Nº 005 · 1991–2009 / 2024–Oasis
Deported from a ferry before playing a note abroad, imploded backstage in Paris over a thrown plum, and conducted a 15-year breakup entirely in public insults — then reunited anyway.
FILE Nº 006 · 1965–2014Pink Floyd
Eased out their founding genius, fired the keyboardist during their biggest album, then fought a years-long legal war over whether the band could exist without the bassist.
FILE Nº 007 · 1964–presentThe Who
Invented instrument destruction as an art form, blew up a drum kit on live TV, brawled with each other for decades, and once fired their drummer for a night mid-concert and hired a fan from the audience.
FILE Nº 008 · 1981–2015 / 2018–Mötley Crüe
Fired their singer by phone, replaced their drummer twice, signed a legal contract promising never to reunite, and reunited.
FILE Nº 009 · 1988–1990Milli Vanilli
Won a Grammy for Best New Artist, then had to return it when the world learned neither of them sang a note on the album.
FILE Nº 010 · 1972–2020Van Halen
Split with the biggest frontman in rock at their absolute peak, feuded with his replacement twice, staged a 1996 MTV Awards reunion that collapsed within weeks, and replaced the bassist with a teenager related to management.
FILE Nº 011 · 1981–presentMetallica
Put their lead guitarist on a four-day bus ride home with no warning, sued Napster and 300,000 of their own fans' usernames, and released a documentary of their group therapy.
FILE Nº 012 · 1971–presentEagles
Threatened each other onstage between songs at a political benefit, broke up for 14 years, said they'd reunite when hell froze over, then titled the reunion album accordingly — and later fired a founder, who sued.
FILE Nº 013 · 1963–1996The Kinks
Had an onstage fight so violent the drummer knocked the guitarist unconscious with a cymbal, got banned from touring America for four years at the peak of the British Invasion, and sustained rock's longest sibling feud.
FILE Nº 014 · 1968–2017 (final bow 2025)Black Sabbath
Fired the most famous frontman in metal for outpartying a band of legendary partiers, cycled through singers and lawsuits for two decades, then reunited for one final hometown show that outgrossed the feud.
FILE Nº 015 · 1967–1972Creedence Clearwater Revival
Signed the worst contract in rock history, broke up over a democracy experiment, boycotted their own Hall of Fame induction — and their label sued the singer for plagiarizing himself.
FILE Nº 016 · 1962–presentThe Rolling Stones
Dismissed their founder weeks before his death, nearly split in the 1980s when the singer took the new album's material solo, and published a memoir calling the frontman unbearable — then toured together anyway.
FILE Nº 017 · 1961–present (in fragments)The Beach Boys
Managed (and allegedly defrauded) by their own father, who sold their publishing without telling them; spent the 90s suing each other over credits, memoirs and the band name; and once nearly recorded with Charles Manson.
FILE Nº 018 · 1974–1996Ramones
Invented punk rock as a fake family of 'brothers,' two of whom then barely spoke for the band's final sixteen years — over a stolen girlfriend — while continuing to share a van.
FILE Nº 019 · 1977–1986 / 2007–08The Police
Became the biggest band in the world and split at the exact summit; recorded their masterpiece in separate rooms while physically fighting; reunited 21 years later and confirmed everything.
FILE Nº 020 · 1957–1970 (and reunions, each regretted)Simon & Garfunkel
Split at their commercial peak over a movie role and a lifetime of accumulated slights dating to a secret solo deal signed when they were sixteen — then spent five decades reuniting and re-splitting, each round adding material.
FILE Nº 021 · 1957–1973 / 1983–2005The Everly Brothers
Ended the most influential harmony duo in rock history onstage at a California theme park in 1973 — one brother smashing his guitar and walking off mid-set, the other finishing the show alone and announcing the act had died.
FILE Nº 022 · 1965–1973The Doors
Saw their singer arrested onstage, convicted over the most disputed concert in rock history, and posthumously pardoned — then decades later sued each other over whether the survivors could tour under the name.
FILE Nº 023 · 1988–2000 / 2006–presentThe Smashing Pumpkins
Fired the drummer after a keyboardist's overdose, replaced the bassist mid-tour, reformed the band with zero other originals, and conducted a reunion negotiation through open letters and social-media walls.
FILE Nº 024 · 1983–1996 / 2011–2017The Stone Roses
Followed a generation-defining debut by paint-bombing their ex-label's offices, spending years in litigation instead of studios, taking half a decade to make album two, and dissolving via a Reading Festival set remembered as an atrocity.
FILE Nº 025 · 1983–presentRed Hot Chili Peppers
Lost their founding guitarist to addiction, watched his successor quit mid-tour in Japan and disappear into a decade of decline, fired his eventual replacement of seventeen years with a single phone call, and rehired the man who'd quit — twice.